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The Abortion Series (FINAL): Hazel Eyes

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling and without warning, my feet followed suit. My head only just escaped a collision with the edge of the toilet bowl as I crashed to the bathroom floor. I watched the little cylindrical plastic tube skitter across the room and cursed it into oblivion. There was no way I was carrying that animal’s child! Hadn’t I been through enough already?! Rage like I’d never known swept over me. A strange beast took control of my lungs and sounds I’d never heard filled the room. My sister Tara came running in. She knelt beside me and tried to take me in her arms but I shook her off. She tried again and I lashed out, striking her across the face.
I needed to find him, to do all the things fear had stopped me doing that day.
In a flash I was off the floor and racing out the front door. I ran towards the train station where he used to sit cross legged on a bed of cardboard, shabbily dressed in a worn grey pin striped suit, a battered black satchel nestled between his thighs. I ran, the cold prickly tar bruising the bottom of my bare feet. In the distance I saw a bright light piercing the dark of the night. I ran towards it willing it to shine into the abyss that now lived where my soul once resided.

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I woke up forty-eight hours later in a hospital bed, surrounded by whirring machinery and the familiar faces of my sister and two of the three ICU doctors I’d become well acquainted with in the weeks I’d spent hospitalised after the attack. Sighs of relief echoed throughout the room. I’d been hit by a car they said. The driver hadn’t noticed me running down the middle of the road till it was too late. The memory came flooding back and instinctively I clutched my stomach.
“The baby is fine,” one of the doctors assured me.
“I don’t want it, get rid of it.”
A thick veil of silence descended in the room.
“I am not having the child of a homeless schizophrenic who battered and raped me.”
Tara took my hand and squeezed gently. “Don’t make any rash decisions,” she said, “I know it’s not an ideal situation but give yourself some time. You might feel differently once you’ve thought it through.”
Every head in the room nodded in agreement and I shut my eyes tight to ride out the wave of anger washing over me. As if on repeat, the scene began to replay itself in my head.
I felt his hand clam over my mouth as the sharp blade of a knife pressed into the small of my back. Warning me not to utter a sound, he propelled me forward. I choked back a scream as my head hit the builders skip blocking off the alley from public view. The pain had barely subsided when he spun me around and landed the first punch. I fell to my knees, blood seeping through a gash on my upper lip. After the third punch, I felt myself slipping away and the last thing I remember as I curled up in a ball, my hands cradling my head, is asking God to save me.
“You have two options,” I announced to no one in particular, “You either help me get rid of this child or I do it on my own, in my own way. The choice is yours.”

*************************

I saw myself standing over the most beautiful baby girl. She was wrapped in a white blanket, her fingers peeking out, reaching for the stuffed monkey that sat smiling cheekily in the top right corner of her crib. I stroked the crown of her head, my fingers weaving through her sparse locks of hair. She giggled, her big hazel eyes lighting up, willing me to do it again. Instead, I wrapped my right hand around her throat and squeezed as tightly as I could. She let out a blood curling scream, her stumpy little legs kicking furiously, hands clenched, forming miniscule fists. Her tears flooded my fingers like water gushing from a burst pipe. The more she screamed, the harder I squeezed. Her face turned a funny shade of blue and suddenly, silence filled the air. Her big hazel eyes were wide open staring at me, a blank expression across her face.
I woke up gasping, sweat oozing from my every pore. I looked up at the clock that hung ticking over the head of my hospital bed. It was just gone 6am, four hours till the procedure. I lifted my right hand to my face and stared at it like I’d never seen it before. I felt her tears burning trails along my palm…and then I saw them…her big hazel eyes, etched in the palm of my right hand. Her screams rang in my head and our voices blended as mine matched hers; agony for agony, fear for fear.
The door burst open and two nurses appeared at my side.
“I killed her! I killed her!”
They tried to calm me down but I was inconsolable. I knew then that she would never forgive me. Those eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life if I went ahead with it.

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8 comments

Wowwwww!!!! Once again you’ve nailed it splendidly. In less than a minute you managed to draw me into a nameless character’s plight. Her anger resonates with me…and the crippling fear her dream brought…..
Like I walways say it doesnt take a fantastic author more than a couple of pages to hook you. Looking forward to reading your 1st novel. Say no to procrastination!!!!!

You’re a highly gifted writer. I respect the way you write, with each paragraph honing the skills of the preceding ones. Beautiful! I especially liked this sentence: “Her screams rang in my head and our voices blended as mine matched hers; agony for agony, fear for fear.”

It must have been so courageous for the person who shared this with you. I admire that.